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Book Description

With bonus material! This Kindle edition features extra content only found in the Collector’s Edition of The Mongoliad: Book Three, including an illustrated character glossary and a Foreworld map.

The final book of the Mongoliad trilogy from Neal Stephenson and company tells the gripping personal stories of medieval freedom fighters to form an epic, imaginative recounting of a moment in history when a world in peril relied solely on the courage of its people.

The shadow of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II hangs over the shattered Holy Roman Church as the cardinals remain deadlocked, unable to choose a new pope. Only the Binders and a mad priest have a hope of uniting the Church against the invading Mongol host. An untested band of young warriors stands against the dissolute Khan, fighting for glory and freedom in the Khan’s sadistic circus of swords, and the brave band of Shield-Brethren who set out to stop the Mongol threat single-handedly race against their nemesis before he can raise the entire empire against them. Veteran knight Feronantus, haunted by his life in exile, leads the dwindling company of Shield-Brethren to their final battle, molding them into a team that will outlast him. No good hero lives forever. Or fights alone.

With bonus material! This Kindle edition features extra content only found in the Collector’s Edition of The Mongoliad: Book Three, including an illustrated character glossary and a Foreworld map.

The final book of the Mongoliad trilogy from Neal Stephenson and company tells the gripping personal stories of medieval freedom fighters to form an epic, imaginative recounting of a moment in history when a world in peril relied solely on the courage of its people.

The shadow of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II hangs over the shattered Holy Roman Church as the cardinals remain deadlocked, unable to choose a new pope. Only the Binders and a mad priest have a hope of uniting the Church against the invading Mongol host. An untested band of young warriors stands against the dissolute Khan, fighting for glory and freedom in the Khan’s sadistic circus of swords, and the brave band of Shield-Brethren who set out to stop the Mongol threat single-handedly race against their nemesis before he can raise the entire empire against them. Veteran knight Feronantus, haunted by his life in exile, leads the dwindling company of Shield-Brethren to their final battle, molding them into a team that will outlast him. No good hero lives forever. Or fights alone.

Editorial Reviews

The third and final volume of the Mongoliad saga is nearly as long as the first two volumes combined, but it’s as fast paced and page-flippingly exciting as its two forerunners. For the uninitiated, The Mongoliad—a mammoth epic set in a sort of alternate-reality version of the thirteenth century, around the time of the Mongol invasion of Europe—was originally an online serial. It was restructured and rewritten for its print appearance (which its seven authors, led by Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear, now consider to be the “definitive edition”), and what you get in book form is, in places, substantially different from the serialized version. But the broad strokes are the same: a small group of warrior-monks, the Shield-Brethren, desperately fight to repel the Mongols before the invaders eradicate their way of life. The Mongoliad grew out of its authors’ (particularly Stephenson’s) interest in the history of sword fighting and the Western martial arts, but it’s more than that; it’s also a ripping good alternate-history saga, a story of devotion and determination in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Setting the epic in an alternate version of the thirteenth century allows the authors to step outside of recorded history and let their imaginations run wild, to create characters that could not have existed in the “real world” and relate events that never actually happened. It’s not absolutely necessary to have read volumes one and two, but that would definitely help, as there is an assumed familiarity with the story’s characters and with what has gone before. But there’s plenty of time to pick up the essentials as you go along, even if this is your first trip to the Mongoliad. --David Pitt

Review

“The Mongoliad was inspired in part by the authors' interest in medieval combat techniques, and the meticulously choreographed fight scenes are among the story's greatest highlights. Another band of Shield Brethren, stationed at the Polish village of Hünern, are involved in a plot to overthrow the Mongol general there; the uprising they orchestrate with Japanese and Korean prisoners of war plays out like a dazzling action movie.” -Shelf Awareness

"…the series is wonderfully crafted…If you're a fan of epic fiction, or historical fiction (which tends to be epic), you'll be doing yourself a disservice by not reading this series. It may soon be remembered as the Wheel of Time of historical fiction." -Novelnaut

"The final book in the Mongoliad trilogy is incredible … I am a big fan of the sprawling epic, like Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings, so when my favorite novelist and six other authors got together to write an epic, I was sold…The action is exciting and feels more real than anything I have read before. The characters are all multi-layered and sympathetic, even when they are trying to kill each other. The pacing is perfect. This might be the easiest recommendation I make all year. Go and read The Mongoliad...Five Perfectly Executed Parries out of Five" -Fanboy Comics

I picked this up on Amazon Prime figuring it would be fun, well-researched historical fiction along the lines of Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. Well I was totally wrong about that. I'll go through it piece by piece:

Characters: Way too many POV characters, makes it hard to care about any of them. The heroes are all noble, selfless boy scouts and the villains are so cartoonishly evil it's a wonder they never twirl their mustaches while yelling "Curses! Foiled again!". None of them really evolve or develop over the course of the story, except maybe Ocyrhoe who no one cares about anyway.

Plot: Conflicts are introduced in the first 100 pages of the trilogy, and get resolved (kind of) in the final 200 pages. The middle 80% of the trilogy is just people hanging out, sending messages back and forth, traveling from point A to B, fighting a few low-stakes skirmishes, and holding staff meetings. I'll grant that the Epic Journey can be done well, but The Odyssey this ain't. Also, the entire Rome subplot was dull, overlong, and totally superfluous to the rest of the story. This book is advertised as an adventure about Christian knights facing off against Mongol invaders, so don't bait-and-switch me some side story about random useless teenagers getting mixed up with a bunch of squabbling Catholic Church bureaucrats. Lastly, the ending was a huge letdown; major questions are left unanswered and there's no resolution of the characters' fates. What's the deal with the Spirit Banner? Will Gansukh and Lian wind up together? Will the knights make it back to Europe alive? If you felt entitled to have these questions resolved as a reward for grinding through the whole trilogy, well the authors beg to differ.

Style: The prose is uniformly bland and workmanlike. I've read most of Stephenson's books and had no clue which parts of this were written by him. There's little in the way of skillful metaphor, vivid description, or humor to bring the story to life, just flat "this happened, then that, and then this other thing". Apparently writing this series was really just an excuse for the authors to geek out about sword fighting, but even the fight scenes are dry and academic without clearly describing what is actually happening: "Bob stepped into Jim's guard and flicked the tip of his blade in an arc, closing the line and sweeping his opponent's hilt to starboard. Jim found his blade trapped between his right arm and left leg, and was forced to go to half-sword to avoid a pommel strike to the back of his head. Pain jolted through his hands as the flukes of his ricasso jammed against Bob's quillons." This nonsense goes on for page after page until you just skip ahead to see who wins.

Between all of the above and the fact that you don't even wind up learning much about this historical period (obvious questions like why the Mongols armies were so effective against Western infantry are never raised or answered), I award this trilogy one star for its overall mediocrity and tiresomeness, and one bonus star for finally giving Father Rodrigo the violent, gruesome death I was wishing upon him from the moment he was introduced.Read more ›

In this third book of the series the 5 or 6 story arcs all come to conclusion. The first two books were mostly concerned with setting up the situations and describing 13th century life in middle Europe. In this book all conflicts are more or less resolved, with much action. Action meaning fighting.

The attention to detail for a period which which most of us are totally unfamiliar is impressive. The multiple characters are clearly defined and my attention was held at all times, even when little or no action was occurring. I did a bit of checking of the real history of this period and the book has it right. I can thoroughly recommend the series, and urge any one considering it to start at Book 1.

Despite this I agonized over whether to assign five or only four stars. In a couple of the story lines I felt the endings did not proceed logically/sensibly. I felt a bit let down. (Won't spell this out because I don't want to create a spoiler.)

At the conclusion the text reads "End of Book 3". Can there be another? Quite a few of the characters are left alive with personal matters to attend to, so it's possible. But the story would have to go off on a whole new tack. If there is a Book 4 I will sign up for it.

I just finished the Mongoliad trilogy with this book, and I'm glad I made it through. The first book took a bit to get rolling, and the second book journeyed off into some strange places from which I feared it never would return, but this book focuses mainly on my favorite storylines - Cnan and the Shield Brethren travelling across the continent, and Gansukh and Lian's story with the Khan of Khans. It also succeeded in piquing my interest in the events in the arena, as well as somewhat more in the cardinals.

Overall, the story of the cardinals never sucked me in much and I felt that the entire section about the binder girl, Ferenc, and Father Rodriguez was a complete distraction. It never connected to the other parts of the book, and I was disappointed by that. I expected somehow for Ocyroe and Cnan to end up in a story together, both being the lost and lonely gals that they are.

there isn't much of an aftermath of this book. It's not clear what happens to the individual characters, or indeed, the entire world, after the events of this book. The most satisfying ending for me was that the people in Hunern, and the Shield-Brethren there, do satisfy that part of the story. Again, it's hard to write about this without spoiling the story.

I think I was going to have a hard time choosing between the Mongols, who I ended up liking, and the Shield Brethren, by the end. It would be a spoiler to discuss what happens here, but I will say - there is the inevitable conflict that the three books led up to. The Shield-Brethren do complete their journey.

I liked that there was much further character development. However, some things were left unresolved. Percival's quest for example.

Overall, if you enjoy alternate history or fantasy, you would enjoy this book - and series - but a lot could have been done to make this a better story. Sometimes it felt like alot of disconnected stories happening in the same world. The space allotted to the book didn't make it possible to complete them all. I just realized - although I enjoyed reading the books, I really can't give this one more than three stars for failing to pull the disparate plotlines together. I guess that happens when you have a lot of authors writing a book by committee.Read more ›

The final volume of "The Mongoliad" (Book Three) is a most rousing, engrossing, conclusion to a great sword swashbuckling alternate history fantasy-tinged epic written by a team of sword and sorcery fanciers led by Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear, two of our foremost writers of science fiction. (The others are Bear's son, Erik, Joseph Brassey, Nicole Galland, Mark Teppo, and Cooper Moo.) In their most capable hands, "The Mongoliad" has becomeamong the best conceived, and superbly written, fantasy epics of recent vintage that I've encountered, a fast-paced tale that should be compared favorably with similar fiction written by the likes of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard; one that also aspires towards high literary art, combining techniques of mainstream fiction with a rather spellbinding storyteller's craft. Only the warrior priests of the Shield-Brethren remain resolute in resisting the Mongols' bloody, horrific invasion of Roman Catholic Christian European civilization, with our heroic warriors - including Shield-Brethren initiate - and healer - Raphael and alchemist Yasper - led by Shield-Brethren knight master Feronantus embarked on a suicide mission aimed directly at the head of the Mongol Empire, the Khagan himself, Ogedei Khan. Mistaken for a cardinal, delusional - and possibly mad - Roman Catholic priest Father Rodrigo Bendrito becomes the unexpected object of a power struggle between competing Roman Catholic cardinals, while he finds something that he thinks may change forever, the future of both the Roman Catholic Church and Europe's success in stopping the Mongol invaders. Readers will be entertained by notable instances of violence ranging from gladiatorial-like bouts between condemned prisoners in the Mongol camps to battles between the Mongols and the Europeans interspersed with brief philosophical introspection that will delight long-time fans of Stephenson, Bear and sword and sorcery epics. Ample credit is due to Stephenson, Bear and their collaborators in crafting a captivating plot while retaining a literary style that seems to be the product only of one author. "The Mongoliad: Book Three" is indeed a terrific conclusion to a notable literary experiment led by Stephenson and Bear and a compellingly readable sword-fighting fantasy and alternate history epic that will be appealing to many readers, including those normally unaccustomed to reading fantasy and science fiction.Read more ›